


Uninhibited I (Kirkwall)

by beng



Series: Arrangements From Afterlife [6]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, Darktown, Deep Roads, Diary/Journal, Dubious Ethics, Family, Freedom, Gen, Internal Monologue, Magic, Responsibility
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-15 10:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2226210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beng/pseuds/beng
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of random shorts, in a more or less chronological order. More specific summaries will be given for each chapter. Works as a standalone.</p><p>1. Hawke's first year in Kirkwall<br/>2. Shepherding Wolves<br/>3. Return from the Deep Roads<br/>4. Night Terrors</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Harrowing Welcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke's first year in Kirkwall. The country girl fades and from the Red Iron emerges the infamous mercenary that caught Varric's attention.

 

 

After days spent waiting at the gate, we are finally in Kirkwall. Gamlen's house is old and dirty, and I suspect there will be nasty wind whistling through the gaps, rain leaking through the roof when the winter comes. Or maybe the winters are milder up here in the Free Marches. I hope so, because the small pile of firewood Gamlen has wouldn’t last us through the winter back in Lothering.

Today Carver and I were given some time to get settled, to look around the city a bit. Tomorrow we're reporting back to Meeran and starting the work. A year-long indentured servitude. Mother is clearly disappointed about Gamlen and heart-broken about Bethany. I guess she's disappointed in me too.

Well, I miss Beth too, and Ma can be as disappointed as she wants to, I won't let that get to me. I won't let my sister's death be in vain.

Yesterday, I killed a man to get accepted by the Red Iron. I don't know if Mother knows. She'll probably realize it at some point, that me and Carver will be killing people for a living, as paid assassins and as personal guards to some merchant or nobleman.

I still don't know how I feel about that. Physically, sending a blast of ice through that man was no different than burning down darkspawn. It scares me, how easy it came to me. Carver at least has served in King Cailan's army. Not very long, but still.

I have no idea what I'm doing with the mercenaries. I had never imagined myself as a killer. I guess I just sided with Carver, who thought that a mercenary band sounded better than smuggling, and then the man's guards attacked us and I reacted out of pure instinct. In seconds they were all dead. I remember Carver's and Aveline's swords dripping crimson on the flagstones.

My hands are shaking when I think about tomorrow, but I cannot let it show. We need that job.

Whatever it takes — me and Carver, we're gonna make this work.

 

* * *

 

Surprise, surprise — Meeran likes me. He says I got the right attitude and the right skillset, and he's giving me more and more work. I say I'm not going anywhere without my brother, both because we need all the money we can get, and because I don't trust Meeran's men to have my back. I am an apostate. I don't want to think what would happen, should they suddenly decide that selling me to the templars is more profitable than having me serve with the Red Iron for a year.

The equipment is lousy. Carver's blade is almost scrap metal, and my staff is splitting along the grain, and I have no idea how to replace or repair it. We are getting paid measly coppers, because the rest goes to cover the debt. We're barely making ends meet, and I'm afraid what would happen if one of us falls ill in Gamlen's draughty hovel. I would rather not use Meeran's healing supplies — it's mostly snake oil anyway. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed and loot the bodies of any would-be attackers for any valuables before the City Guard comes. It's even worse when I have Aveline with me, because she is a guard herself. I see how much it pains her to be on the wrong side of the law and be unable to help us in any other way than with her sword.

Mother is still grieving, and Gamlen is still acting as if our showing up has destroyed his life — as if we should all be kissing his boots for being allowed to stay at his house. I try to ignore them as much as I can, because what matters is that there's bread on the table and firewood in the corner.

I am counting the days till this whole thing is over.

 

* * *

 

Carver almost died today, and I almost killed Meeran.

He swore he had no idea that the client had been just a middle-man, who had then sold the information to the target. He swore on his mother's grave that he hadn't known they'd be expecting us. I want to believe him. I really, honestly want to believe him, because the first man I killed on his orders had deserved it by giving him bad information, so I want to trust him, to believe that he's doing his best looking out for us all, because I don't know how to make it through the remaining six months otherwise.

I just finished stitching up my brother's arm, side and back. Some of his ribs are bruised, or maybe broken. He's drifted off in a fitful sleep now, and Mother is sitting with him.

Maker, the look on her face when I dragged him over the threshold... Accusing me of putting him in harm’s way, as if Bethany's death was not enough. As if there was any other solution, or as if I could make him sit at home while I alone pay off the debt to Meeran.

Then Gamlen started whining about the blood on his sheets and floor, and what are we going to do and how will we pay for any medicine, and... And then I slapped him, and I shouted at Mother to shut up and get me hot water and bandages, and thread, and then I stitched Carver up myself, because apparently I'm the only person in this family who's not running around like a headless chicken when bad things happen.

Why does she not understand that I can't make him stay at home? Andraste's flaming knickers, he has fought more darkspawn than any of us, he's not a baby, Mother! Yes, he is younger, yes, you already lost one child, yes, he can be a fool, but he's smart in his own way, and he's a good fighter, and I need him, Mother. You must see the man he will become, you must stop coddling him and trying to protect him from the world. He will make his own decisions, but until then he's going to do his own share of work to repay that debt, and I will respect that. I won't always be by his side, if he sees it as being in my shadow, but I will always love him with all my heart.

Forgive me, Mother for shouting at you. It's residual battle fury and nerves, and fear for all of you, even Uncle Gamlen.

I'll go down to the Docks, maybe Lirene has something useful. Or maybe she can at least point me in the direction of the right warehouse, I honestly don't care anymore. I just can't let Carver die.

 

* * *

 

A few days ago we received news that the Blight is over, but I don't think we’ll ever go back to Ferelden. Lothering, our home, is gone. They say the soil itself is poisoned, and the mages, the few that survived the corruption of Kinloch Hold and the Battle of Denerim, have only tentative hypotheses about how to make the land fertile again.

Our year with Red Iron is almost up. I have made a name for myself in the shadier circles of Kirkwall. Carver too.

After that first time when he was so severely wounded, I got us some time off, a sort of small holiday till he got better. I was going crazy in the house, with all the cobwebs and dirt, and rats, and Gamlen — a whole brigade of cleaners would not be enough to get the place in order, much less just me and Mother, because Gamlen is so used to it he simply doesn't care anymore. I wanted to get out of the city. Going through my things, I had recently found the talisman that the Witch of the Wilds had asked me to bring to the Dalish, so we whisked Aveline away from her never-ending guard duties and went up the Sundermount.

I met a blood mage there — a cute little thing with large green eyes, wielding powers that turn earth itself against you, that are drawn from the Fade as much as the blood. She is somewhat clumsy, but she has a strong will and an unshaking belief in her own abilities. Even with her self-imposed limits, to never let others bear the price of her magic, she's a fearsome sight to behold in battle.

Seeing Carver still holding his ribs at night, seeing Aveline selflessly placing herself in front of all danger, remembering the many skirmishes we survived by a hair's breadth, I knew I wanted that power. Wherever we go, whoever we become in life — mercenaries, killers, marauders, thieves — I want to make sure that nothing can ever harm me and mine again. So sod all doctrines and past prejudice, sod Chantry laws, sod everything. I can make my own laws, think with my own head.

Tomorrow I'm walking down the steps of the Alienage and drawing a new line between good and bad.

I'm becoming a maleficar.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to iscatterthemintimeandspace for reviewing!
> 
> I'm playing around with writing styles and damn I love the greyscale morality of DA. It's an unexplored ocean all on its own.  
> Comments and constructive criticism are highly welcome! :D


	2. Shepherding Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Self-immolation because the Qun demands it.  
> Hawke — the unapologetic blood mage, the unscrupulous mercenary — doesn't understand.

 

I took a job helping a Qunari mage today. That is, I thought I was helping him, because I was guiding him back to his own people, back to freedom and safety. Now, I don’t know what to think anymore.

He did follow me. Even protected us from the lowlifes thinking they owned the tunnels under Kirkwall. He told me I was worthy of following. A _basvaarad_ , he said.

But turns out he went with me only to die. Just because he thought that maybe, probably he was possessed, and just because his religion said so, he had to die, so that’s what the blighter did — set himself on fire right before our eyes.

Had he written himself off from the very beginning, from the moment he was separated from his group? Then why didn’t he do it in Petrice’s hideout? Or in the tunnels?

Where does such conviction come from, such bloody willingness “to live by the Qun” that you would rather set yourself on fire than live free?

After returning to the city, I tried to talk with Fenris about it, even if he hates mages. He thinks we’re all abominations just waiting to happen. Apparently the Qunari think the same, but their fear of magic runs so deep that they don’t even train their _saarebas_ , or teach them how to recognize the real dangers of the Fade. That makes them just hedge mages, self-taught and ready to explode with all their restrained power. No training, no mind-blocking exercises, no knowledge. Nothing but a walking weapon of pure destruction.

I think it's incredibly stupid of the Qunari, but that’s what Fenris told me.

I am trying to imagine (remember?) how it must feel to have only the barest minimum of control over your magic.  How it must feel to be completely alone in your struggle to try and make sense of the various flows and to combine them in a useful spell before they consume you. To have no protection against the demons whispering in your head, promising to make your wildest dreams come true. It’s like constantly trying not to crash your ship in a storm — year after year after year...

No wonder every one of them needs his own personal templar.

At the same time, it is probably nice to have such blind faith in your religion that you never question the order of things. To trust someone with your life and delegate all the decisions to them. No fear of possession. No need for thoughts or opinions of your own, just literal compliance with what some prophet wrote ages ago. No personal responsibility whatsoever.

It seems wrong on so many levels.

I remember my childhood, and I thank the Maker for my Father. I was never alone in my struggles with magic, he trained me and explained things to me. He taught me to be who I am. I look at Anders, and he might be a double fugitive living in the Undercity sewers, but still his Circle training and education shine through. Me a maleficar and he a possessed apostate, we are no paragons of what mages can and should be, but we know what we’re doing when we tap into the Fade, and we accept the responsibility for our actions. So does Merrill and Marethari, so did Bethany and my Father.

My whole life there has been only one whom I would trust to take me down if I ever become possessed, and that is Carver. He is young and sometimes stupid, and definitely annoying, but his heart is in the right place, and his blade is sharp and heavy. He would start rolling his eyes and complaining the moment I’m doing something wrong.

Otherwise, it’s just me and my willpower. My decisions and my responsibility. I could never give up that freedom, let somebody else decide for me. We’re similar that way, me and the Darktown revolutionary.

I guess it’s useless trying to understand what the fuck happened today on the coast, how such blind submission to enforced ignorance is possible. I just want to kill Sister Petrice, and that crony templar of hers, to stuff the talisman the _saarebas_ gave me down their throats and throw themselves to the wolves…

But I have a feeling that I _will_ remember this day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to iscatterthemintimeandspace!
> 
> It's a small quest, but every time I play, I find more and more foreshadowing in it. So here's to responsibility and proper education! Cheers! :)


	3. Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke never thought to bring the newly met healer with her, when she and Carver went into the Deep Roads. Now she has just returned, rich and broken, and guilt-ridden and ashamed, and her mother's in tears, and Hawke can't take it anymore.

The door of Gamlen’s house falls shut behind her, and for a long moment Hawke just stands there on the top landing outside. The sky is darkening. Soon, the streets will be empty, and the red glare from the Foundry will be the only light left. The mage bites hard on her lip and walks stiffly down the stairs, staff held in a white-knuckled grip.

For all her spells and reputation, Hawke finds she can barely walk the streets. There are no heavy footsteps at her back, and the silence is paralyzing. Hawke casts a nervous glance behind her, but there is no danger there either, just some drunk elf wallowing by a garbage pile, muttering curses under his breath.

She concentrates on her breathing and walks on, street after street and stair after stair. She doesn’t know where she’s going, she just knows she can’t stay in Gamlen’s house any longer.

Eventually, Hawke finds herself in an alley between two buildings, removing a rusted metal sheet covering an entrance to a basement and then climbing down a long ladder leading into Darktown. It is dangerous down here, and she is tired from a day’s walking and pretending she’s holding up alright. But the healer is calling the Undercity his home, so if he can walk the passages alone, then... Wait. When did she decide to come to Anders, of all people?

As she wonders, her feet carry her down the last flight of stairs, and there’s the usual lantern casting an orange glow above the door of his clinic. Hawke gives up. Like a moth drawn to a flame, she drags herself into the hall and, nodding a greeting to one of the helpers, collapses on a free cot, puts down her staff and rests her head in her hands. What is she even doing here? Why did she think that the possessed apostate with the nice smile and a vendetta against the Chantry was the person to burden with her troubles? And then…

“Over there, Anders. She just came in.”

“Thank you, Eugen.”

A warm hand touches her shoulder. “Hawke? Are you hurt?”

 

*

Anders brings her chamomile tea, a warm blanket, and, when she asks, a sheaf of paper with a pencil. He lingers around the cot, warm concern and hesitation in his eyes. He hasn’t seen her in weeks and doesn’t know what has happened, but he’s not going to press her for explanations tonight.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he says as he props her staff against the headboard and then gently wraps her feet in the blanket. His hands are a welcome weight on her ankles, and as he looks up at her, she thinks she feels a subtle torrent of healing magic seeping into her tired limbs.

For a moment, it looks like he’d like nothing more than to sit with her as long as she needs, but they’re barely friends, and he has patients to attend to. Hawke understands, because there are people dying of some infection in the Alienage, and they need him more. Hawke will manage. She always does. She’ll just stay here in the clinic and get drunk on his tea, and write her soul out, and then maybe she can sleep. 

She can’t go home. She’s barely holding herself together, and she can’t hold Mother together as well. Maker, she’s a terrible person! Her mother has just lost another child, and the only one remaining just runs away!

Hawke’s eyes are burning, but on her way back to Kirkwall she has swallowed and buried all her tears. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to cry over Carver now. Instead, she wishes she had stayed in the Deep Roads with him. She should’ve taken Aveline’s sword and run it through both of them.

The paper, supported on a wooden cutting board in her lap, is patiently bearing her disjointed, sloppy runes as she writes a single word, and then strikes it out over and over again.

Her brother. She didn’t tell him often enough how much she loved him. How proud she was of him, the little critter.

How can she look her mother in the eye and repeat what Varric told her, that at least the treasure from the Deep Roads should last them a lifetime? What can she say to her, how can she console her, when there’s a gaping hole in her own chest, when she hears phantom footsteps following her as she walks the streets, when the bunk bed beneath hers is empty, when she’s just Hawke now, and not Sister. Never anybody’s sister anymore.

The pencil breaks as she presses it too hard, and the last word remains half-written, broken and interrupted, like Carver’s life.

She can’t deal with this. She’s a failure, and she can’t even face her mother. She is weak and useless. Ash, taint and blood are the only fruits her actions bear.

Hawke’s hand stills on the paper as she stares at the blunt end of the pencil. She has no more words. She just wants her brother back.

 

*

She wakes a couple hours later, to find Anders sitting by her bed. His head rests against the wall, his eyes closed and legs outstretched parallel to the cot. His hands are lying limp on his lap, over a pair of scissors and a tangle of new bandages. Now Hawke sees that what woke her is a grey and white tabby stepping over the folds of her blanket, long whiskers and green eyes carefully exploring the new terrain. Hawke watches as the cat turns in circles and then settles down by her side.

The mage glances up at the sleeping man and remembers that he stated he liked the little blighters on the very first conversation they had. Like the typical Fereldan, Hawke has always preferred dogs and horses, but she used to have cats too, back in Lothering. Bethany loved them, and Carver detested them.

She sticks out her hand from under the blanket and strokes the tabby, focusing all her thoughts on the silky softness of its fur rather than the tragedy and the loss that was the Deep Roads.

Some old lady is murmuring a prayer by the little altar, and the waves of the sea passage are lapping gently against the rock walls of the Undercity. There is sickness and death here in Anders’ clinic, but there is also hope and consolation.

The cat purrs and snuggles closer as Hawke runs her hand over its neck and back. The mage curls her body around the little beast, tucks the blanket under her chin and drifts off to sleep again, lulled by the warmth and the peaceful purring, the low candlelight and the scent of chamomile still hanging in the air.

After more than seven weeks on the road, she finally feels safe.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to iscatterthemintimeandspace for beta-reading and for reminding me Anders is a cat person.


	4. If The Price Is Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When retrieving Arianni's boy from the Fade, Fenris and Isabela betray Hawke, forcing her to kill them. But it's just Fade, it's not real, right?

Nine days.

That’s how long I’ve been avoiding Fenris and Isabela after they messed up in the Fade. I was considering never to see them again, but by day three I managed to calm down sufficiently to have a laugh about it. Perhaps it was more of a sarcastic chuckle than a laugh, but I’m getting there, alright?

And I’m generous. I say “messed up”, not “betrayed me” or “stabbed me in the back”. No. I’m being nice and understanding. Making you forget your promises is what demons do to you. They find your weaknesses and exploit them to their advantage. It can happen to anyone, especially if it’s your first time in the Fade and if you have no idea how to deal with demons (just don’t).

Of course, that still doesn’t cancel out the fact that they made some pretty stupid decisions and turned on me, so I had to kill them. Yeah, it wasn’t real, yeah, they simply woke up at Arianni’s and immediately felt bad about their decisions, but damn. Killing a trusted companion is not something you could easily forget just because it wasn’t real. Felt fucking real to me.

I’m surprised that Anders (or Justice?), with his volatile temper, was the only one to resist the temptation. Was it because he’s possessed? Could that be why the demons didn’t even offer him any deals? Or was it his being a mage and being trained to recognize the dangers of the Fade?

Then again, he said he was Justice. He talked and acted like somebody else, but he was also still Anders. He says he and Justice are one, and I guess I can accept that. At least, I can accept it better than having to kill Fenris because he’s turned on me to achieve some mysterious power and get his revenge on the magisters, or Isabela, who does the same thing for a ship and a tumble with a demon. I mean, how cheap is that?

This is ridiculous. I have to get over this, and then go and collect their apologies and simply move on. It’s the right thing to do.

What hurts the most, though, is that, for a while at least, they truly believed that revenge and a ship were worth more than my life. And, damn, I’ve tried to be a good friend! I’ve protected their asses, gotten myself into fights and other dangers to help them, have always been ready to listen (or argue), but I was always there for them! I _tried_ to be always there. And damn it stings — that, for a while at least, I was not good enough. A _ship_ was better than me. A _quest for revenge_ was more important.

I have honestly no idea how to forget that. I have to believe that it was just a trick. Make myself believe that it was no big deal and we all make mistakes. But I’m terrified that this was no simple mistake but a symptom of something deeper, that one day such betrayal could become real no matter how hard I try to fix those friendships.

I wonder what Merrill would have done in place of those two. And I wonder — I admit it’s shameful curiosity — what could make Anders give in? I mean, he’s always so strict about not dealing with demons, not doing any blood magic… What would it take, what secret wish or heartfelt desire could a demon promise him, to make him break that principle?

I think I should go talk with Anders about what happened. See what he thinks. And I suspect he might want someone to talk to as well, seeing as he was temporarily… displaced in his own body.

Alright, so what if I just want to go down to his clinic, bury my face on his feathery, revolutionary shoulder and pretend it’s gonna solve all my problems. I am secretly pathetic like that.

 

So I wonder — what would it take to break me?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kindly beta-read by iscatterthemintimeandspace


End file.
